The place around me was a little creepy.
Blood marks could be seen on the soil.
Basically, Kael had performed a ritual which increased his body's potential to reach the highest core ranks.
It also increased his mana control to an unbelievable degree.
These boosts were the only reason due to which he could fight toe to toe against the protagonist of the game, who had crazy broken abilities.
But still, Kael lost at the end.
Reason?
The ritual took away all his emotions and sanity from him.
Yes, it's debatable whether such a minor thing could lead to his ultimate defeat.
But if you observe carefully, humans—despite being inherently weak—have been able to survive in the world against countless other species who were stronger than them.
The main factor that made humans unique was their emotions.
Love, anger, sadness, hatred, and all other emotions are what fueled humanity's rise to being the apex predators of the world.
After Kael lost his emotions, he wandered around the world, increasing his strength with each passing day.
But power without a goal is meaningless.
His lack of emotions and sanity resulted in him becoming a mass murderer in the later arcs of the game.
He became a wild animal whose only instinct was to kill.
In his madness, he killed millions of people, which ultimately resulted in the protagonist having to defeat him.
Still, even while having broken abilities, the protagonist needed the help of several allies to defeat Kael.
He was the final boss for a reason, but his madness consumed him in the end, leading him to be killed quite pathetically.
I won't repeat those mistakes, even if I wanted to.
My brain is too good to allow myself to be defeated.
Currently, I am 16 years old, and exactly two years later, admissions to the Namda Academy will begin.
Namda Academy is situated in the neutral territory of Namda, hence the name derived.
It is a facility to train the elites of all races. It was made in order to establish and maintain the fragile peaceful balance among the various races of the world.
Getting admitted there would be a good thing for my growth, as the best instructors in the world teach at that very place.
But first, I need to take care of certain important things.
The first being to make my own organization to do my bidding.
I mean, you can't expect me to rule without people under me!
I need to make something similar to what I had on Earth.
D.X.
My life's greatest achievement.
To do it, I need to find capable people who would be loyal to me, which is a difficult task.
But my incredible mind just happened to develop a plan.
An awesome plan.
This world has many villains, and given the timeline, many of them still have some time left before they become crazy villains.
All I need to do is make these villains work for me.
Simple, right?
Sigh.
I hope reality had been that easy. But still, I refuse to give up on my dreams like every capable man out there!
For any organization to work properly, it needs a proper hierarchy.
Here, I am the apex of the ladder.
The second thing I need is a good strategist and a strong second-in-command who can maintain order in the organization.
First, let's stop calling it an organization.
It will be called D.X., the same as what it was before.
As for its head, it will be X—that is yours truly!
You can't expect me to lead it with my original name. That would be a dumb thing to do.
I would be doing all kinds of illegal stuff that would surely categorize D.X. as a criminal organization.
Having my real name attached to it would be like offering my head on the chopping board.
Wait…
This isn't how I think.
This isn't how I speak.
Now that I observe carefully, my way of thinking has a lot of derivations from when I was X.
Is it the result of the merging memories of X and Kael?
So when they fully merge, who will I be?
Will I lose my existence altogether?
It's…
Doesn't matter.
My goal stays the same.
I have to live.
To survive.
And—to rule.
Coming back to the topic, I need to find my strategist and my prime fighter real quick to let things fall into motion.
And I already know where I can find them.
First, let's find the strategist, who actually needs to be a level below me in thinking and intellect.
Not to be disrespectful, but surpassing me in intelligence isn't a simple thing to do.
So my strategist just has to be capable enough to at least understand what I want from him—and the perfect candidate would be Julien Drake.
In the original game, Julien was one of the heads of a massive cult that worshipped some evil god.
Under his brilliant strategies, the cult became one of the most feared organizations in the world.
He outsmarted the protagonist at every turn and, leading an army of crazed people, was able to challenge the united power of all races.
His fear spread far and wide.
He himself was weak in cultivation, but his brain was his biggest asset.
As for how he became a villain—
Well, it's the same story that follows many villains.
Born in the slums, he had no background, no formal education, no power—but still, he yearned to do something with his life.
But society always took advantage of him.
To earn his living, he tried to work at many places, but people never paid him, or many times he was severely underpaid.
People from the slums are never treated as humans.
The laws in the outskirts are flexible. Weak people just have to bow their heads and accept whatever compensation they are paid—or sometimes they even have to work for free just so they aren't killed.
Although slavery was frowned upon, many nobles enslaved such weak people to do their work free of cost.
As for justice—
It is a luxury for the privileged and the strong.
And people from the slums were neither.
The same thing always kept happening with Julien.
One day, after a dispute with his employer, Julien killed him in a heated argument.
After that, the authorities were on his tail to punish him for his crime.
Seeing the hypocrisy of the world, he devoted himself to some evil god—and that's how the rest of the story goes.
But this time will be different.
If my estimates are right, right now he should be around 15 years of age—the naive child trying to earn something to eat.
And how am I going to recruit him?
Approach him as his savior in dark times and earn his loyalty.
As simple as that.